TOMAS LEE has long dreamed of selling American consumers on Korean
barbecue. Mr. Lee, a 42-year-old native of Seoul, South Korea, who grew up in
Mustang, Okla., took a step toward realizing that dream in October 2009
when he opened Hankook Taqueria in Atlanta, serving tacos stuffed with
soy- and garlic-marinated beef, along with chicken and pork, all
barbecued in the Korean style.
“I was going to open a traditional Korean barbecue restaurant,” Mr. Lee
said. Then his wife, Mackenzie, had an idea. “She saw this thing about
Kogi on the Web,” he recalled. “And I thought tacos might be a way to
get Korean food on everybody’s table.”
What captured Ms. Lee’s attention was Kogi Korean BBQ-To-Go, a
retrofitted catering truck that rolled onto the streets of Southern
California in November 2008, selling corn tortillas piled with
Korean-style barbecued short ribs known as kalbi, garnished with onion,
cilantro and a hash of chili-soy-dressed lettuce.
Eighteen months later, dozens of entrepreneurs across the country are
selling Korean tacos. Like Buffalo wings and California rolls, Korean
tacos have gone national, this time with unprecedented speed. Few of
these entrepreneurs appear to have made pilgrimages to Southern
California to eat at a Kogi truck. (There are now five.) Many,
especially those of Korean ancestry, say they studied news media reports
of the Kogi concept, recognized their culture at the core, and made the
concept their own.
“You get the feeling that this is our chance to mainstream Korean food,”
said Jae Kim, a Seoul native, selling Korean tacos since February at
his Chi’Lantro truck in Austin, Tex. “And it’s happening so quickly.
It’s like everybody is realizing that it’s now or never.”
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